Mandate

This inquiry is mandated by the need to be transparent and
accountable to all disaffected WikiLeaks supporters around the globe,
including current and former WikiLeaks Party members, who have a
right to know what really happened to the WikiLeaks Party at the
Australian 2013 federal election.

This inquiry is mandated by the WikiLeaks Party's own failure to
deliver a meaningful promised inquiry into their calamitous “errors”
in the September 2013 election, their continued damage of the
WikiLeaks “brand”, and their failure to uphold their own stated
values of transparency, accountability and justice.

This inquiry is mandated by the dire state of our planet and the
urgent need for genuine change to our political, business and social
structures. Anyone associated with WikiLeaks should be setting an
example, not playing cynical power games.

Terms
of Reference

Unlike the six embarrassing pages of garbage (including mis-titled
cover page and irrelevant email addendum) spewed up by WLP after five
months, this inquiry is not limited by deliberately arbitrary Terms
of Reference limitations. Instead it provides a comprehensive,
independent, public review of the WikiLeaks Party (“WLP”),
including:

the creation of the party and the lead-up to the 2013 Federal
Election, where the allocation of preferences proved a critical
point of failure,

post-election responses and further activity of WikiLeaks
Party members,

the current state of the party,

outlook for the future of the Wikileaks Party.

Objectives

To hold the WikiLeaks Party to its own professed standards of
transparency and accountability, as stated in its Constitution.

To examine communications between WLP decision-makers leading
up to and following the 2013 Australian federal election.

To expose the truth behind unpopular WLP preferencing
decisions in NSW and WA, including the unsubstantiated claim of an
“administrative error” in NSW.

To examine how WLP staff have behaved before, during and
since the election, and how this has affected the reputations of
WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

To recommend future changes.

Scope

This inquiry adopts as broad a scope as is required to get to the
truth about the WikiLeaks Party. There are no timeframe constraints
or other limitations.

The scope of this inquiry is only limited by WLP's continued
failure to explain its own actions, and the author’s inability to
get straight answers from anyone still associated with WLP, including
several who seem to have left the party but remain silent on their
involvement.

The author has made repeated unsuccessful approaches for
information to WikiLeaks Party directly, and the following people in
particular:

John Shipton

Cassie Findlay

Greg Barns

Kellie Tranter

Gail Malone

Omar Todd

Methodology

This review is presented in the format of a formal audit for no
particular reason other than to make a mockery of the WikiLeaks
Party's own decision to adopt such pseudo-professional voodoo to
whitewash their actions.

The author has examined all available public data, including:

Written statements of resignation from ex National Council
members Leslie Cannold, Dr Dan Mathews, Luke Pearson, Sam Castro
and Kaz Cochrane, plus volunteers like David Haidon and Sean Bedlam,

Where the author has relied on verbal information or
personal experience, this is clearly stated. See the About The
Author section below for background.

See the Sources section below for links to
original documents.

Assumptions

Given the reticence of WLP staff to publicly justify their
actions, answer simple questions, or respond to valid criticism, the
author has been forced to make assumptions about their reasons for
maintaining silence. Of course people have a right to remain silent,
but when they scape-goat others without explaining their own actions,
and where circumstantial evidence is compelling, assumptions
unfortunately become inevitable. Readers are of course welcome to
draw their own conclusions.

Review
& Approval

This independent inquiry will be reviewed and approved (or not) by
the general public. Corrections to factual errors will happily be
made if any mistakes are identified and proven.
This inquiry is intended as a positive contribution to further
public discussion and decision-making. Anyone disagreeing with any of
the facts presented in this review is welcome to leave a public
comment below (preferably) or contact the author:

Gary Lord

garylord@gmail.com

@Jaraparilla

About
the Author

The Australian author of this review is a long-time vocal
WikiLeaks supporter who since 2010 has helped organise many local
and national demonstrations in support of WikiLeaks and Julian
Assange's right to freedom. His tweets and blog articles have been
frequently re-tweeted by @wikileaks. He authored the OzWikiWatch
site (ozwikiwatch.blogspot.com), which maintained a check on
Australian government support (or lack thereof) leading up to the
2013 election. He has spoken frequently in public in support of
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

The author has had limited personal contact with the
following past or present WikiLeaks Party staff: John Shipton, Matt
Watt, Kaz Cochrane and Sam Castro. He has been in contact with
Julian Assange rarely and by email only. He has never met any other
National Council members, although he has communicated with most at
some time via Twitter or email.

The author was previously listed online as the Queensland
spokesperson for the Melbourne-based WACA group (originally
WikiLeaks Australian Citizens Alliance), headed by Kaz Cochrane and
Sam Castro. This was arranged because (a) media seeking comments on
Assange, WikiLeaks and WLP were unwilling to talk to anyone without
a title of some sort and (b) nobody from WACA in NSW or Victoria
wanted to post their number publicly, as they were busy with WLP. In
effect, the role mostly involved screening calls and alerting Sam
and Kaz to any media opportunities. Following the election the
author asked to be removed as spokesperson because he has never had
involvement in day to day WACA affairs.

The author had discussions with John Shipton and Julian
Assange regarding (a) running as the 2013 Queensland candidate for
WLP, or (b) finding another suitable QLD candidate. The author was
not eligible under AEC rules and no other QLD candidate was
selected.

The author became QLD co-ordinator for election day voting
booths (aiming to help provide WLP supporters with How To Vote
flyers at booths in Northern NSW), an unofficial position he quit
before the election.

The author was also a member of the WikiLeaks Party Social
Media group, a collection of trusted online activists whom the WLP
brought together to help spread a co-ordinated message leading up to
the election. The head of the group was current WLP NC member Omar
Todd.

Since the election, the author has maintained a campaign to
demand WLP deliver their promised inquiry into the NSW preferential
voting “admin error”
http://jaraparilla.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/wheres-that-wikileaks-party-inquiry.html
. The author sadly remains a vocal online critic of recent WLP
activity and is now campaigning for the WLP to be terminated before
more damage is done (see #EndWLparty hashtag). This review sets out
the logic and events behind such criticism. Readers are asked to
avoid ad hominem attacks and judge for themselves based on the facts
presented herein (or in some cases, the facts deliberately with-held
from the public by WLP).

The author remains committed the WikiLeaks ideals of
transparency and accountability. He has no vested interest in either
supporting or damaging WLP, and is providing this report for his own
personal desire to see real transparency and accountability in
action.

Historical
Background

This section examines the facts surrounding key events. If you
disagree with these facts, leave a comment or contact the author. For
conclusions based on these facts, see the Findings section.

Party
Foundations

The WikiLeaks Party was incorporated as a political party in
Australia in 2013, while founder Julian Assange remained
unjustly trapped in Ecuador's London embassy, where he was granted
political asylum in August 2012.

Mr Assange's biological fatherJohn Shipton
performed much of the initial
work required to set up the
party. Former Liberal Party candidate staffer and disgruntled ex-Greens
memberGreg Barns was appointed Campaign Manager for the 2013
federal election, which was held on 7th September.

A Constitution was created and posted on the website:
https://www.wikileaksparty.org.au
On July 25, seven WikiLeaks Party candidates for the Australian
Senate were announced in three states:

Victoria:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange,

Author and Monash University gender studies lecturer Leslie
Cannold (who would take Assange's seat if he were to win but not
be able to return home),

RMIT law lecturer Binoy Kampmark.

New South Wales:

Human rights lawyer Kellie Tranter,

Former diplomat Alison Broinowski.

Western Australia:

Refugee activist Gerry Georgatos,

President of the National Ethnic Disability Alliance Suresh
Rajan.

Some of the above candidates were also
on the original National Council, which included:

Matt Watt (aka @Karwalski, owner of the WikiLeaks Ute)
handled much of the technical/web issues and remains the Party
Secretary.

The
Schism

A schism within the party developed early on, with John Shipton
and Greg Barns taking an authoritarian approach to decision-making,
while a faction on the National Council demanded more democratic
processes based on respect for the WLP Constitution. This faction was
largely represented by Sam Castro, a strong personality with years of
experience in activism, but appears to have included all the NC
members who eventually resigned - Leslie Cannold, Kaz Cochrane, Dan
Mathews and Luke Pearson – plus other staff.

In my own pre-election conversations with Sam Castro, she clearly
saw the WikiLeaks Party as a vehicle with the potential to grow
beyond Julian Assange's influence. This was not necessarily a bad
thing, especially while Julian remained under detention. We discussed
the possibility of WikiLeaks Parties springing up around the world
with a basic message of transparent, open government. There was no
reason such ambition could not co-exist with the primary goal of
getting Julian Assange safely home and into the Senate. But I suspect
others within the Party may have viewed Castro's ambitions less
favourably.

Meanwhile John Shipton appeared to have ambitions of his own,
despite originally informing NC members that he was going to quit
“before the election” and “once the party is set up”. Media
appearances increasingly focussing on himself rather than his son or
the party's platform and candidates
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/like-father-like-son/story-e6frg8h6-1226663757794
. Perhaps he was granting interviews to the wrong people, or perhaps
he was just enjoying the limelight a bit too much. Either way,
discontent continued to simmer as the election approached . And
Shipton continued to hold onto several key roles in the party,
despite being challenged to at least drop all but one of his
positions.

Dan Mathews
(http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/22/wikileaks-julian-assange): “The WikiLeaks party has arguably suffered serious problems from
the outset, being pulled in radically different directions from its
base and membership, on the one hand, and the figurehead and
associates on the other... Barns spoke repeatedly of his
conversations with Julian, but it seemed to me that much less
communication apparently occurred between Julian and the National
Council. As such, in my view, a divide started to appear between an
insider group, including Julian, Shipton and Barns, and the rest of
the national council... Strong commitment at the center of the party
to deals seen as unscrupulous and unprincipled by supporters was a
train wreck waiting to happen."

The
Preferences Debacle

NOTE: Under Australian law, all
political parties must allocate “preferences” for other parties
to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC): these preferences are
allocated in numerical order after all voters' primary choices have
been counted. The aim of this system is to ensure that if a voter's
first preference does not get elected (e.g. a minor candidate) they
can still have a say in the final outcome. Voters are allowed to
personally number all candidates on the lengthy Senate voting paper,
but in practice most just choose one party and allow that party's
submitted list of preferences to decide how their own preferences are
allocated.

The original need for a WLP inquiry arose as a direct result of
public anger at how WLP allocated preferences in the states of New
South Wales (NSW) and Western Australia (WA). In Victoria, where
Julian Assange was running as a candidate, the WLP preferences were
generally well received.

The NSW preferencing debacle had a prelude: a few weeks before the
election, WLP NC member Cassie Findlay was handing out flyers at
Marrickville Markets in Sydney when Greens councillor Max Phillips
asked her about WLP preferences. He tweeted that he was told WLP
would be putting “rightwing micros like Shooters & Hanson”
ahead of the Greens
(https://twitter.com/maxphillips/status/366402575991455745
). This claim was dismissed by WLP supporters (including myself) who
could not believe that anyone in a position to know would be stupid
enough to tell random members of the public about WLP preferences
before they were announced.

NOTE: Max Phillips was only able to identify Ms. Findlay as
his source after preferences were announced.

When preferences were finally announced, it was even worse than
Max Phillips' tweet suggested. From WLP's own published Inquiry:

Over a period of several weeks
prior to the 2013 Federal Election, the WLP National Council members
attended internal meetings and conversed via email, telephone
conferencing and other electronic media to preference a record number
of Senate candidates.

A WLP press release stated (inter
alia) that we “aren’t aligned with anyone”.....and will
“support and oppose the policies of other parties and groups
according to our stated principles”.

The WLP publicly released its group
voting ticket on 17 August 2013, in which preferences for the
Australia First and the Shooters and Fishers Parties were placed
above the Greens in NSW, contrary to exchanges of emails between WLP
National Council members leading-up to the deadline with the AEC.

In WA, the Greens were placed below
the National Party.

The far right white supremacist Australia First party are
generally considered Fascists
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_First_Party
). WLP's election fate was ultimately sealed by this singular
decision to allocate preferences to Australia First above the Greens,
who are Australia's third most powerful party and the only major
party to consistently speak up for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks (see
OzWikiWatch http://ozwikiwatch.blogspot.com
).

When news of the WLP preferences broke, there was an immediate
uproar on social media. The Greens and their supporters were
horrified that WLP had placed them behind Fascists and
anti-environmentalists in NSW, and behind the Nationals in WA (who
are part of a Coalition with the Liberal Party, which ultimately won
the election). Even loyal WLP supporters like myself were confused
and angry.

In WA, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam had been by far the single most
supportive WikiLeaks/Assange supporter in parliament. He had even
travelled at personal cost to the UK and Sweden to meet Julian
Assange and plead his case with authorities. When WLP preferences
were announced, Senator Ludlum said he considered the National Party
to be the biggest threat to his own chances of retaining a Senate
seat.

The announcement of preferences was a major blow to WLP's
public support nationwide, particularly as much of the WLP support
base were people who would normally vote for the Greens. By contrast,
the Greens had preferenced WLP highly in every state where they had a
candidate.

Although Julian Assange had previously
expressed support for right-wing Libertarianism and US Republican Ron
Paul, WLP supporters had no reason to believe the party would take an
anti-Greens right-wing stance, particularly given the principles
outlined in its Constitution and stated policies.

The resignation statement from Dan Mathews, who had (sensibly, in
retrospect) advocated doing no preference deals at all, explained
what had been happening behind the scenes:

“At a national council meeting on 12
August, there was spirited argument between Greg Barns and several
members of the national council regarding a deal with Family First.
As part of its decision at that meeting, the national council
requested Barns to provide certain information.

“Although Assange had not attended
the meeting, after receiving the council’s resolution by email he
quickly wrote a long email entitled “NC micromanagement of
preferences”, in which he expressed his displeasure with the
council in making such requests, and proposed an alternative
structure for preference decisions. Negotiations would be done by
lead candidates, with no restraints on them, and Assange having a
right of veto. He proposed giving the national council a role in
rubber-stamping the results of this process.

“Thus, one member of the national
council was proposing to grant themselves a right of veto and to
reduce it to a rubber stamp. Given the eagerness of some to pursue
deals even with the far right, I and several others on the national
council were keen to retain the national council’s role in these
important decisions.

“I told the council that the party
could have been set up autocratically, but it was not set up that
way. It was set up with a reasonably democratic structure, with a
governing council with membership and representation from various
sectors supportive of, and related to, WikiLeaks. If it could be
overridden by the lead candidate when he disagreed, it would be a
sham. This received the support of several others on the council, and
it thus appeared that the council would not be reduced to a sham.”

But the National Council was indeed reduced to a sham, along with
the rest of the party. As Dan Mathews further explained:

“The council could not practically
decide the precise ordering of all parties, and some discretion was
left to the candidates and/or campaign teams to establish the
details. Nonetheless clear instructions were formalised by Barns in
an email sent at 8:16 pm Friday night, which said the following.

I would have preferred to
have had Shooters and FF in the mix but the final deals are:

Victoria – Greens put
WLP at number 2 and WLP has Greens first of majors and drops Shooters
and FF/Christian groups below majors.

WA – Greens preference
WLP at 2 and WLP puts Greens first of major parties and above
Christian right and Shooters.

The Shooters and some
parties on the right will probably put WLP below the majors as a
result of these deals.

“Nothing further was heard until
Sunday, when I woke up to find that the Wikileaks party ticket in NSW
had the Shooters & Fishers — and the Nazi Australia First
party! — above the Greens. In WA, the Nationals were above the
Greens.

“I was dumbstruck.”

The online furore over WLP preferences quickly grew more
widespread, angry and vocal
https://twitter.com/KellieTranter/status/368988921402626048
. It was already being reported in national media before WLP
belatedly issued a statement blaming the NSW preferencing on
unspecified “administrative errors”. The Wikileaks Party
statement:

“The WikiLeaks Party isn't
aligned with any other political group. We'd rather not allocate
preferences at all but allocating preferences is compulsory if your
name is to go above the line.

“In allocating preferences
between 53 other parties or groups in NSW some administrative errors
occurred, as has been the case with some other parties. The overall
decision as to preferences was a democratically made decision of the
full National Council of the party.

According to the National Council
decision The Shooters & Fishers and the Australia First Party
should have been below Greens, Labor, Liberal. As we said, we aren't
aligned with anyone and the only policies we promote are our own. We
will support and oppose the policies of other parties or groups
according to our stated principles.”

There were suggestions that the two women who had submitted the
NSW preferences – Cassie Findlay and Gail Malone – had confused
the Australia First party with the similarly-named Family First
party. It was a lame excuse – particularly for anyone familiar with
previous National Council discussions - and it was not enough to
placate social media, where intense debate continued for weeks.

WLP's WA candidate Gerry Georgatos – himself a disaffected
former Greens member, just like Greg Barns [ed: Barns was a former Liberal Party candidate] – finally admitted on
radio that “it was NOT an administrative error” in NSW but
refused to elaborate further.

Gerry Georgatos nevertheless insisted that the state candidates
had the final say on WLP preferencing (as per Assange's email), and
it had been his own personal decision to preference the Nationals
ahead of the Greens' Scott Ludlam in WA. He was adamant that the
Nationals could not be considered a “major party” in WA and had
no chance of winning a seat.

Georgatos (a campaigner for indigenous rights) argued that the
Nationals Party candidate was an indigenous Australian who had no
real chance of winning, but deserved a “token of support”.

Senator Ludlam ridiculed the claim that the WA Nationals had no
chance of beating him, and events later proved him right: Ludlam
ended up being voted out by a very narrow margin and had to appeal
for a recount, which was eventually dismissed due to missing votes.
He now faces a fresh election.

As it turned out, given the process of allocating preference
votes, WLP preferences were not critical to the result in either
NSW or WA, although margins were extraordinarily slim at various
stages of the count. Nevertheless, Georgatos' claim that the National
Party candidate never had a chance was wrong.

Allocating WA preferences to a right-wing Coalition member was
at best a foolish gamble, a PR nightmare, and a
betrayal of WikiLeaks Party principles (as stated in the
Constitution).

NOTE 1: WACA later claimed that an un-named National
Council member had caved in to pressure from Greg Barns and “a
candidate” to change the NSW preferences. Sam Castro also told me
that Gerry Georgatos had emailed Greg Barns asking if it was OK to
preference the National Party in WA, but Barns had failed to pass on
his concerns to the National Council. So why did Georgatos bother to
email Barns, if he really thought he had the final say? Or is that
what Barns told him? We don't know because neither has been willing
to explain the truth.

NOTE 3: There has been much
speculation that a deal was made with infamous “preferences
whisperer” Glenn Druery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Druery
), who specialises in “helping” minor parties orchestrate
preference voting for mutual benefit. Although there was obviously
much discussion, I have seen no proof of any such deal. In fact, Sam
Castro says that at one stage she heard Druery tell Greg Barns that
he had “ruined everything”. Alison Brionowski also denied there
was a deal with Druery.

Dan Mathews: “On 6 August, at a
national council meeting, Barns proposed a deal with a group of small
parties, organised by Glenn Druery. It is of course his job to talk
to other parties and I have no doubt he has worked hard and honestly
to do his job throughout. This group, including several far right
parties, proposed to deliver 7%-9% of the vote to us if we
preferenced them all highly. The national council rejected it."

The
Walkout

Following the massive public furore over WLP preferences, National
Council members met to discuss what went wrong and how it could be
fixed. Details of these discussions were published in their lengthy
statements of resignation, which have never been seriously challenged
(see the Sources section at the end). Dan Mathew's statement,
quoted extensively in this inquiry document, is particularly
illuminating.

It is worth noting that the resignation statements were relatively
subdued and generally did not name names, politely giving the party
an opportunity to remedy errors and continue operations without
specifically damaging anyone's reputation. It was only in the
to-and-fro arguments that followed, where WLP insiders continued to
deny responsibility and blame those who quit, that specific people
were named.

‘‘As long as I believed there was
a chance that democracy, transparency and accountability could
prevail in the party I was willing to stay on and fight for it. But
where a party member makes a bid to subvert the party's own
processes, asking others to join in a secret, alternative power
centre that subverts the properly constituted one, nothing makes
sense anymore.

‘‘This is an unacceptable mode of
operation for any organisation but even more so for an organisation
explicitly committed to democracy, transparency and accountability.’’

Wednesday
21st August, 2013 – three days after preferences were
announced - was the day people started resigning. A week earlier I
had been offering John Shipton a bed in my house as he travelled up
to Queensland. Now, as news of Leslie Cannold's resignation spread
across the Internet, I was on Twitter demanding public answers and
refusing to take his frantic calls. I sent an angry SMS to Greg
Barns:

“This is
just bullshit Greg. The people who did the wrong thing with
preferences and dragged us to the right should be the ones
resigning.”

No reply. But
I did get an SMS reply from John Shipton to my public tweets:

John Shipton:
“As for the NC being subverted who the fuck told you that? Some
fucking lowlife who wanted more shit spread around and could not wait
2 weeks til the election is over... Self righteous vain people. All
over.a two bit error that makes no difference to any result.”

I told John
to stop texting me privately and get his WLP version of events out to
the general public instead. I said the preference deal was a massive
stuff up and I was sick of doing damage control on Twitter when
nobody in the party was prepared to even defend their own version of
events.

John Shipton:
“Rubbish and more rubbish . We ensured Ludlam a win in WA .The Nats never get more than 3.5 . Stop believing negative
bullshit about us. Politics is all about damage intros and
perception. . You hate us yet we work all day and night... Jesus
wept.”

My reply:

“John it is not about me: get on
Twitter and take a look. I have stood by Julian through thick and
thin. And I do not hate anyone involved with WLP. But this massive
fuckup was totally avoidable.”

John:

“What the fuck are you gonna say
upon finding that Cannold was a plant”

This was an outrageous suggestion, especially because Julian
Assange had personally selected Leslie Cannold as his running mate;
if he could not take up his Senate seat, she would take it for him.
Of course, in the paranoid-inducing global Infosec world of
WikiLeaks, such treachery sometimes has to be contemplated, but there
never was and never has been any evidence to support such a wild
claim. It smacked of crazy desperation.

Me:

“If that is true then tell it to
Australia. A smart media manager can turn all tomorrow's bad
headlines to WLP's advantage. But to own the narrative you have to
get your version of the truth out there. WLP is not doing that. That
is what I am saying.”

It was at this stage that Sam and Kaz and Dan and Sean and David
and Luke announced their resignations...

Another SMS from John:

“Really and truly treacherous . No
calls to me or Greg or anybody”

NOTE: In fact they had given up on Barns and Shipton and
had been trying unsuccessfully to contact Julian Assange in London.

Me:

“Sam and Kaz have been getting
arrested for your son. They are wonderful committed people.”

John:

“Loved both those women: but one
day, when all is calm we can talk about what unfolded before my eyes
and heart.”

Well, John, we are all still waiting to hear your version of
events. All we ever got from WLP was a joke of an inquiry, five
months late. WLP has never properly explained “what unfolded”.

NOTE: I never heard from John Shipton again. His twitter
account @JohnShipton remains silent.

Of course the resignations provided an opportunity for the
mainstream media to inform the general public what was going on –
and curiously, many readers replied that they didn't even know the
WikiLeaks Party existed. In fact, the party later claimed that NSW
membership had actually increased after the resignations.

They say there is no such thing as bad publicity: this shows that
the party could still have gone on to win votes if they had been able
to get their version of events out to the public. But their version
of events was something the WLP leadership was desperate to keep
private.

The
Fallout

Following the resignations, Julian Assange issued a statement and
made several Australian media appearances in an effort to limit the
damage.

Julian Assange: “I made a decision
two months ago to spend a lot of my time on dealing with the Edward
Snowden asylum situation and trying to save the life of a young man
(Bradley Manning). Now, the result is over-delegation, so I admit and
I accept full responsibility for over-delegating functions to the
Australian party while I tried to take care of those situations.”

Assange's efforts back-fired because he could not properly explain
the WLP “administrative error” and because he simultaneously
maintained that as party leader, he could do whatever he liked,
regardless of the party's Constitution or the National Council.

By this time Crikey had published leaked WLP emails showing
Assange's efforts to over-ride National Council decisions on
preferences:
http://media.crikey.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/From21.pdf
This increased the pressure on Assange to either defend the final
preferencing decisions or explain the “error”. He managed to do
neither successfully.

This lengthy prime-time TV appearance was just a week out from the
September 7th election. The last best chance to repair the
damage had just been blown.

Election
Results

WikiLeaks Party won just 0.66 per cent
of the national vote. No candidates were elected.

Australian political parties that win
over 1.4% of the national vote are eligible for government funding
that can amount to millions of dollars. This would have been
invaluable to the ongoing work of WikiLeaks. No such public funding
was earned.

Post-election
Activity

This section details further activity by WLP since the
election.

Blogging

After the election, remaining WLP staff went largely silent on
social media, refusing to discuss what happened. But the party
continued to post bizarre articles on their website, including a
“Happy Birthday” hagiography of former Australian PM Paul Keating
(who supported Indonesian dictator Suharto) and climate denialist
pseudo-scientific nonsense that contradicts the party's own
Constitutional support for the environment (John Shipton has told
former NC members that man-made climate change was a hoax).

Syria
Trip

In late December 2013, en route to
visit Julian Assange in London, John Shipton lead a Wikileaks Party
delegation to Damascus, where they met with Syrian President Bashar
Assad, who is widely condemned as a War Criminal. The visit appears
to have been orchestrated by delegation member Daoud Jamal, who
joined the WLP NC after the election. Gail Malone was also on the
trip.

Syrian TV news portrayed the WLP visit
as an official Australian “solidarity delegation”. There was no
specific mention of WikiLeaks or the WikiLeaks Party. The Assad
regime tweeted a picture showing the President addressing the seated,
smiling WLP members, who later admitted they were only allowed to ask
Assad two questions. It is clear they were used as a PR tool by
President Assad's regime at the height of the Syrian civil war.

"Because of the defamatory
statements made against myself by Prime Minister Tony Abbott and
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, we have asked barrister Clive A. Evatt
to begin defamation proceedings seeking $5 million in damages in each
case.”

For a party supposedly committed to Freedom of Speech, this was
yet another ridiculous move. It was also pathetic. Shipton was
clearly trying to save face with a legal threat that had no chance of
succeeding. Did he not realise that he was now the CEO of a political
party, and as such could not demand the privacy to which a normal
citizen is entitled?

Graeme
Dunstan, an
old friend of
Shipton's, told
an email forum that
the WLP
Syria trip was just like Jane Fonda in Vietnam. But
Fonda got to make a dozen radio speeches to the Vietnamese people
over several weeks, while WLP were only allowed to ask two questions
to Assad. Just before she left Vietnam, Fonda was photographed
sitting on a North
Vietnamese tank,
and this “Hanoi
Jane” image
became an enduring PR nightmare she always regretted. WLP
got the PR disaster photo and nothing else.

WLP
claimed they also met with Syrian opposition but were never able to
substantiate this claim. WLP NC member Daoud Jamal - whose Twitter
avatar when he joined the NC was a man with a machine gun in front of
a Palestine flag - has blogged explicit support for President Assad,
and has been assaulted at Sydney demonstrations by anti-Assad
protestors.

Pro-Russian
Propaganda

WLP followed up their Syrian PR disaster with a series of
interviews with Voice Of Russia journalist John Robles, where
selected quotes were hand-picked for pro-Russian propaganda.

“An additional call was made to a
campaign staffer. In direct contrast to the public statement The
Wikileaks Party put out this morning in which we promised the public
that we would have an immediate independent review of the preference
outcomes, this person said that the review would be delayed until
after the election and that it wouldn’t be done independently. The
caller would run it. This is the final straw.”

As we now know, that “caller” was
John Shipton. And again it is worth noting that Cannold did not name
Shipton as the “caller” at the time, presumably because she knew
Julian Assange would be damaged by association with his father's lack
of ethics.

The WLP inquiry was eventually sent
out to members by email on 4th February 2014, five months after the
election. The author was a WLP member who made it clear he did not
have enough information to draw any meaningful conclusions.

It was conducted by Stuart Bell of
Bell Campbell Auditing, a WikiLeaks Party member approached by John
Shipton, Julian Assange’s father, to conduct the audit. The review
is six pages long, including the cover page and an attachment. In it,
Bell complains that his conduct of the review was “limited” by
his “inability or access to all relevant information and WLP
personnel, especially where there has been a severe fall-out over the
2013 preferencing issues in NSW and WA”.

Bell had not been able to interview
anyone except for Shipton, but says he took written submissions or
phone calls from other key figures like Greg Barns. Bell also laments
“limited or no access to WLP official transcripts, minutes of
National Council meetings and official emails/correspondence”,
which forced him to accept the word of those he interviewed. However,
Bell rejected the “administrative error” claim by the party:

“It cannot be shown that
it was an ‘administrative error’, based on the electronic and
verbal hyper-activity by the National Council members … It was a
combination of human errors caused by a highly emotional and volatile
atmosphere, where a number of key WLP members were instrumental in
causing confusion, not from malicious intent but due to a lack of
defined responsibilities.”

Bell goes on to recommend that the
party make its preference allocation decisions earlier and that
someone formally be given the job of overseeing the allocation
process.

The WLP inquiry (PDF:
http://media.crikey.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/WikiLeaks-Party-Independent-Review.pdf
) was reviewed by the auditor in November 2013, after it had already
been approved by NC member Kellie Tranter on 26 October 2013. Of
course it is not normal for documents to be further reviewed after
they have already been approved, and there is no explanation for
with-holding the document a further three months. I asked WLP and
Kellie Tranter for comment but got no reply.

Abuse
Of WikiLeaks Supporters

Prior to the formation of the WikiLeaks Party, WikiLeaks
supporters in Australia were a vocal, united and active group across
all states. Public demonstrations in support of Julian Assange's
right to freedom were held regularly, along with online activities.
Since the election, this unity and support has all but vanished, and
WLP has done nothing to replace it.

The problem began when WLP insiders criticized those who resigned
(as described above). These personal attacks – accusing people of
being treacherous or even secret government agents – have never
been substantiated, and there has never been any apology for them.

The problem was exacerbated when @wikileaks began to criticize
@akaWACA on Twitter, and Sam Castro in particular. Julian accused
WACA of using the WikiLeaks brand to build a power platform and
demanded they change name (this has belatedly been done).

Then @wikileaks posted a link to an embarrassing old video of Sean
Bedlam (which Bedlam said he had tried unsuccessfully to get removed
from a disreputable website). What is the point of such vindictive
character assassination? Isn't this the same ad hominem muck-raking
UK media has done to destroy Assange's character? Admittedly, Bedlam
has posted angry tweets rudely describing his contempt for Julian
Assange. But surely a proper WLP inquiry, justifying the
unsubstantiated allegations of “treachery”, would have been a
better way to respond to such criticism?

On the day the WLP Inquiry was released, Sam Castro claimed
https://twitter.com/jaraparilla/status/431997851858526208
someone had deleted all her emails prior to August 13th
2013 (including emails regarding the pivotal August 12th
WLP meeting) in multiple accounts. She supplied no proof of this but
said other WikiLeaks supporters had suffered the same problem. I
asked @wikileaks and @wikileaksparty to deny any involvement in this
but got no response.

WA
Revote

WLP has recently announced that it will run the same candidates
when WA goes back to the polls.

WLP insiders have consistently blamed those who resigned for their
poor election results. This is not true. The damage was done by the
preferences, which totally shocked and alienated countless
supporters. The debacle was then exacerbated by the flimsy excuse of
an unsubstantiated “administrative error” and – finally - the
ludicrously cynical promise of an “independent inquiry” after
the election.

Circumstantial evidence, combined with WA candidate Gerry
Georgatos's public admission, make it clear that the decision to
preference Fascists and anti-environmentalists in NSW was no
“administrative error”. At best, one might imagine that the
preferencing of Shooters & Fishers was deliberate sabotage of the
National Council vote while the preferencing of the Fascist
“Australia First” party was an accidental confusion with the
“Family First” party [ed: or Australian Voice - see emailed comment from Dan Mathews in Comments below]. But WLP have not even tried to substantiate
this possibility.

Statements from those who resigned indicate that remaining
members of WLP, including John Shipton and Greg Barns [ed: Barns did not have a vote], previously
voted to submit NSW preferences with the Shooters and rightwing
parties preferenced.

Weeks before NC member Cassie Findlay personally submitted
the preferences (along with Gail Malone) to the AEC, she was already
publicly telling people this would happen.

Neither Cassie nor Gail nor Greg nor John is prepared to
publicly state what really happened.

Greg Barns continued to argue post-election that WLP
candidates could have won with the right-wing preferences he
desired.

While there is no “smoking gun” it is quite clear that the
National Council decision on NSW preferences was deliberately
subverted. This lack of respect for formal procedures was further
evidenced by John Shipton's attempt to build a new power base by
covertly approaching Sean Bedlam and Kaz Cochrane Victorian volunteer co-ordinator David Haidon when Leslie Cannold
resigned.

The decision to call this an “administrative error” can
most generously be explained by blind panic. The fast and furious
public backlash on social media seemed to genuinely shock the WLP
power-brokers. Having made a mistake, they exacerbated it by lying,
thus sealing not only the downfall of their own party, but also
denying Julian Assange a fair and reasonable chance to get elected
and come home as an Australian Senator.

WA
Preferences

WA candidate Gerry Georgatos was clearly under the impression that
he had the power to submit preferences as he pleased, whatever the NC
may have instructed. Either he was given the nod by someone more
senior (most likely Greg Barns, or via Greg Barns) or else he made
his own arrogant decision. In either case, he does not appear to have
been admonished – quite the opposite. Georgatos' decision to
subvert NC procedures confirms Julian Assange's admission that he did
not exercise proper oversight of the party.

And either way, whatever Georgatos or Matt Watt may say, it was
clearly a foolish decision. It contributed to the broader national
anti-WLP backlash, it definitely and significantly endangered Scott
Ludlam's chance of a Senate seat, and (perhaps most importantly) it
must surely have left a damaging impression on Senator Ludlam and
other senior Greens, who may well choose not to spend so much time
supporting Assange and WikiLeaks in the future.
Assuming Senator Ludlam still has a future in parliament. The WA
re-vote is scheduled for April 5th 2014.

Allocating WA preferences to a right-wing Coalition member was
at best a foolish gamble, a PR nightmare, and a
betrayal of WikiLeaks Party principles (as stated in the
Constitution).

Blaming
The Greens

There was a pre-election deal between WLP and the Greens, who
accepted that WLP would preference minor parties (but no major
parties) ahead of them. Gerry Georgatos' insistence that preferencing
the Nationals in WA did not breach this deal was clearly ridiculous:
they are a key part of the Liberal-National Coalition that has held
power in Australia for most of the past 20 years.

With the deal broken, the Greens did not hesitate to attack WLP
for supporting Fascists and anti-environmentalists. This may have
lead some within WLP to call the Greens hypocrites and even
ultimately blame them for the ensuing debacle. But the Greens were
well within their rights to attack WLP, who (on the basis of their
listed preferences) should have been prepared for such criticism from
all sides.

The fact that both Greg Barns and Gerry Georgatos was a were disaffected
former Greens member [ed: it was Jamal Daoud not Barns who was also a disaffected ex-Green. Jamal later joined the NC but quit acrimoniusly blaming Shipton. Georgatos set up a breakaway group called The Real Greens] obviously did not help in this situation. Indeed, it
seems to anti-Greens sentiment within the party may be a key reason why the Greens were preferenced so lowly in
the first place. Kellie Tranter and Omar Todd also posted tweets that
blamed for the Greens for WLP's own failures.

Personal prejudices appear to have negatively affected party
decision-making.

Blaming
Julian

It is impossible not to hold Julian Assange personally responsible
for much of what went wrong with the WikiLeaksParty. It is also
impossible to be sure exactly how much decision-making he was
personally involved with.

What is abundantly clear, however, is that since the election he
has closed ranks with his father John Shipton (despite continuing and
embarrassing errors of judgement), supported unsubstantiated attacks
on his own supporters, and approved the cover-up of events
surrounding preferences and resignations. This is foolish and
disappointing behaviour.

It would be nice to blame this on the paranoia induced by
relentless pursuit by extremely powerful forces, Julian's continued
captivity in the Ecuadorian Embassy, and his consequent inability to
meet supporters face-to-face. And nobody should be influenced by the
media's relentless smear attacks on Julian's character. But nobody is
perfect, and ultimately the WikiLeaks Party failures have exposed an
authoritarian element of the WikiLeaks founder.

The author of the WLP Inquiry concluded:

“In the author’s opinion, it was a
combination of human errors caused by a highly emotional and volatile
atmosphere, where a number of key WLP members were instrumentalin
causingconfusion,
not from malicious intent but due to a lack of defined
responsibilities.”

In fact, it seems the responsibilities of the National Council
were adequately defined in the Constitution, but the leadership chose
to ignore and ultimately try to subvert the Constitution.
As founder and self-declared President of the WikiLeaks Party,
Julian Assange must take full responsibility for its mistakes.

Mitigating
Factors

It is worth pausing to reflect on other considerations which made
success for the WikiLeaks Party a serious challenge. These include:

The Australian media (with notable exceptions including
Fairfax's Phillip Dorling and ABC Four Corner's) and major political
parties are generally hostile to WikiLeaks.

Volunteer staff were working on a casual or part-time basis.

Communication was hampered by international and interstate
time differences, lack of real world one-to-one contact between key
personnel, and the constant need to consider government
surveillance.

The party never got close to its declared funding goal and
had limited financial resources.

NOTE: Due to lack of solid evidence, this document has
generally not examined party financial issues.

Summary
Of Findings

The WikiLeaks Party has been an utter and complete failure for all
but a small handful of remaining members. It has betrayed its own
stated principles, ignored its own Constitution, turned against its
own National Council leaders with unsubstantiated attacks,
disillusioned its own members, and alienated WikiLeaks supporters
worldwide.

The WikiLeaks Party has unnecessarily divided the previously
strong community of WikiLeaks supporters and virtually destroyed
active, vocal support for Julian Assange in Australia.

The WikiLeaks Party has inflicted global reputation damage by
association with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Much of this has
resulted from foolish and avoidable behaviour, which politicians and
an antagonistic media have happily used to attack their prime
targets.

Post-election WikiLeaks Party activity has been embarrassing and
counter-productive. The party no longer seems to know what it stands
for, and its reasons for continued existence need to be urgently
reconsidered.

*

The Australian Preferential Voting system is inherently dangerous
for any minor party (by design, it would seem). Many people,
including the Greens, are now calling for it to be abolished. WLP
should have dealt with this danger by either:

Adopting NC member Dan Mathews' recommendation not to be a
part of any sleazy deals, or

Publicly advising members that WLP would be taking a totally
cynical, Realpolitik approach to an inherently unfair system,
whereby the end (getting Julian Assange elected) justified the means
(giving preferences to Fascists etc).

Similarly, the WLP was created with an admirable Constitution, but
the leadership appears to have seen the National Council as at best a
rubber stamp, and at worst an obstacle for authoritarian
decision-making. Assange, Barns and Shipton in particular should have
either:

Set up the party with a more authoritarian structure, or

Respected their own Constitution.

*

In George Orwell's Animal Farm, “some pigs are more important
than others”. This appears to have been the attitude of Julian
Assange, John Shipton, and Greg Barns, who felt they had a right to
impose their will on the National Council, whatever was written in
their own Constitution. With no other evidence provided by them, such
a warped perspective is the only way to understand their allegations
of “sabotage” and “treachery”. Anyone who refused to do what
they were told was clearly a traitor intent on destroying all their
hard work.

Recommendations

Julian Assange, John Shipton, and Greg Barns have had ample
opportunity to explain the allegations of sabotage and treachery from
the staff who resigned. They have failed to do so and should
apologize for making the allegations. Any money still owed to
ex-staff should be paid.

Fundamentally, Julian Assange needs to reconsider his relationship
with those who support him around the world. Rightly or wrongly, many
strong supporters have complained for years of being “used” and
not fairly acknowledged for their efforts (e.g. “stealing”
tweets). A more humane and respectful approach should be embraced.

NOTE: I
have previously suggested that Assange may have Aspergers and I again urge
him to consider this possibility when trying to understand why these
interpersonal conflicts continue to pursue his otherwise laudable
efforts.

Many WikiLeaks supporters worldwide are deeply disillusioned with
the political process, and even question the value of voting,
particularly in the corrupted two-party democracies that dominate the
Anglosphere. Some, who would rather fight for change from outside the
political process, saw the WLP as a rare opportunity to make politics
work from “inside the tent”. This effort has failed and the
WikiLeaks Party no longer provides any clear avenue for further
advancement. For example, consider how the Pirate Party is pressuring
governments worldwide with copyright campaigns and good work on
Infosec, then ask what additional help WLP provides?

The WikiLeaks Party is currently trying to organize for the WA
Senate re-vote in four weeks time. They are fielding the same
rejected candidates, with even less funding, even less supporters
(going by social media) and no apparent sense of purpose or
direction. It would best for all involved if members properly
acknowledged the party's mistakes and threw their support behind
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam instead.

Having betrayed its own principles of transparency and
accountability, the discredited WikiLeaks Party no longer serves any
useful purpose and should be shut down.

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